done? Or shall I go down and ask the others?"

"You wouldn't dare," I cried, "or I will tell them what you did!
How you waylaid me on those stairs there, and forced your
caresses, your kisses, on me! Oh, I could die with shame!"

The silence that followed was as unexpected as it was ominous. I
knew he was staring at me, and I was furious to find myself so
emotional, so much more the excited of the two. Finally, I looked
up.

"You can not deny it," I said, a sort of anti-climax.

"No." He was very quiet, very grim, quite composed. "No," he
repeated judicially. "I do not deny it."

He did not? Or he would not? Which?



Chapter XIV. ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE

Dal had been acting strangely all day. Once, early in the
evening, when I had doubled no trump, he led me a club without
apology, and later on, during his dummy, I saw him writing our
names on the back of an envelope, and putting numbers after them.
At my earliest opportunity I went to Max.

"There is something the matter with Dal, Max," I volunteered.
"He has been acting strangely all day, and just now he was